Visiting the Powell Fam

The remainder of the trip in Chicago was spent visiting with family. All of my dad's family lives out in Peoria, IL.





Isn't my grandma so gorgeous?

Oh, and check out this dog driving a car! Yeah, only in the midwest...

Before leaving, my dad took us by the homes where my great grandparents lived! It was incredible to see them.

And nearby was the church where my grandparents were married. I'd never been able to get that glimpse of family history before, and it was absolutely wonderful!

SNOW!!!

Now, being from Arizona, the actual highlight of the trip was waking up to see this:

It had been about 3 years since I had seen a real snowfall, so it was very exciting for me. Anthony wasn't quite so thrilled (he lived in Utah for several years) but I was just like a little kid!

Look at how awesome my dad is - we're visiting at his brother's house, and he wakes up early to shovel the driveway for them! I love my daddy!

I jumped right out of bed when I saw the snow and quickly got dressed and ran outside to play! My dad and I even built a snowman together - my first snowman in at least 10 years!



Then Anthony finally got his lazy butt outside, and we were prepared with an ambush! He and my dad had a snowball fight! My dad was a serious machine - he was like the thing at the batting cages that shoots the balls out - it was just snowball after snowball after snowball!

I love snow! I don't ever want to live in it, but I love to visit it!

Luke Days

This weekend was so much fun!

Not only were Ambre and my fantabulous Mother-In-Law in town, but we had the Phoenix Air Show at Luke Airforce Base!

My parents were both in the Air Force, so I grew up around planes, in the hangars, on base, etc. However, I hadn't been to an air show since we moved from Alaska about 14 years ago!

Bekah and I stumbled across the info on the show just a few weeks ago and were thrilled to see that not only was the show only a few weeks out, but that it was free too! Can life get any better? I submit that it cannot!

It was absolutely amazing (other than the fact that I could barely walk from bootcamp on Friday).

Here's pictures of us just hanging out at the show:

Somehow my dad and Jonathan managed to avoid being in the pictures....

The highlight of the show was definitely the Thunderbirds. They're really just a recruiting tool for the Air Force, but man, can they fly! I was actually surprised at the pictures my camera was able to take - it was really sunny, so I could hardly see anything on the screen, and they were going by so fast that it was almost impossible at times to follow them with just the camera. But I got some good shots:

Afterward, Anthony told me that he wanted to join the Air Force so he could fly like that.

I said no.

But I certainly wouldn't mind flying in one of those planes!

Oh, and you can check out some more pics that my dad took here: http://www.powell-az.us/luke%20afb%202009/

Must...kill....Jamie........

And I would if I could muster up the energy to do so...but I can't.

Yeah, bootcamp kicks your butt.

We just finished day 1.

Ambre threw up 3 times. (Now, this isn't entirely abnormal for her, but it means we worked out hard.)

Oh yeah, and I can't exactly walk right now. And that was just this morning.

I can't wait to see how I feel tomorrow.

Or maybe I can.

But I can't wait to see how I look after a month of this!

It's booty time!

As in, it's not booty time...

As in, let's get rid of my booty time...

My good friend Jamie is this awesome personal trainer and he has a boot camp that he holds three times per week. I hear it is grueling and that I want to kill him afterwards.

Well, Ambre and I are going to try it.

We just took our before pictures (these will not be displayed until there are some far better after pictures. Sorry, folks!)

We start tomorrow - I'll let you know how it goes!